Minority Report v QPR

Selby Red · Aug 19, 2016

55&counting said: ↑

Red Rain
I'm totally astonished by your post. What doesn't astonish me is the reaction to it. You may or may not know/remember but I am an avid reader of your opinion, some of which I agree with some of which i disagree with. Your latest submission is quite unbelievable. Like you I am a supporter of 50 plus years (55 actually). Like you I can contextualise by comparing the "then" and the "now". Like you I'm with this for the duration;. as was my dad and my Grandad before him.Like you I always try and be objective. Unlike you I do let my emotions run away with me and (apparently) unlike you I am a glass half full type. Like you I try and be, and have been, patient over the years and will continue to be so. I will not demand the managers head on plate if we lose 10 games on the trot.

I feel I have to respond to your points on last night, which I consider to be way off beam. As you say to others on here, you can choose to ignore what I say. I hope not, because hopefully it might help you to see things differently and not come to a conclusion that others are wrong because they disagree with you....and please don't tell me I'm missing the point because i don't think I am.

1. Why would you not have the courage to most anything on here? A Bizarre way to start......

2. For you to declare that we played formula football in the first half is ill founded. 11 players doing exactly what they were told by the Coach?. Baloney. Hammills flicks, Kent's flicks, Aidy White on a diagonal run from the edge of his own 18 yarder, across the half way line to the edge of the opposition's 18 harder are just three examples of our players NOT doing exactly what they were told to do by the coach. No coach in their right mind would encourage his full back to take such a risk and expose the team should he lose the ball.

3. We certainly did lead early from a set piece...but that wasn't just it. as others have tried to point out to you we also put together 35 minutes of scintillating football during that half. One move which others have referenced which you appear not to have seen involved fast one touch football with passing and movement at high intensity which left the QPR players reeling. I know my football (but don't know much about owt else) and I know that what we saw in that first half was free flowing, attacking, high pressing and top quality football against a team who were shell shocked by the intensity of our approach. The opposition couldn't cope. what is more is that it was thoroughly entertaining.

4. "In our last third, the players are not allowed to play football. They are merely instructed to get distance on every clearance, and the central defenders do so with both head and feet. There is little attempt to find a player ahead of them, and indeed there are very few players ahead of them because midfield is so deep"
I got there early last night and watched the defenders warming up. i observed the coach undertaking long and short passing movements with Robbo and Alfie - in particular the diagonal ball to feet. For such a keen analyst of the way we play, i'm surprised you've not noticed the number of times those two play that forward diagonal ball to the feet of, either the strikers or the advanced (yes advanced) midfield players. Look out for it next time you go. They introduced it last season during Johnson's time and have been using it ever since. If it goes to one of the striker's who is coming deep it's laid off to one of the central, either advancing or sitting, midfielders - who in turn look to the overlapping full back or winger.
It's probably also worth your while counting the number of long balls Robbo and Alfie play and how many of them actually find a man. You'll be surprised. Rather than the hoof ball you are suggesting dominates our game, I think you'll find that we mix it up. Long and short. Claiming that they are "merely instructed to get distance on every clearance" really makes me wonder how closely you actually watch what happens. Really. Mawson's long range passing, with both feet, is well above average for a CB.

5. Re Bradshaw - rather harsh for you to condemn him as a poor buy after just three league games. His work rate is good and he's trying to fit into the method. He will score goals for us - in this formation, but he needs the right service. That will come once he's tuned in to us and we're tuned into him.

6. Josh and Conor were not standing on the toes of the CBs in the way you have exaggerated. Again, may be you weren't watching, but Josh in particular against Derby made several good runs forward only to fail or fall on the edge of the opposition box.

7. Some of your opinion is the stuff of high comedy:
"But he (Bradshaw) is not the only one who does not look like they are enjoying things"
I'd love to ask each of the lads who played last night whether they agree with you. Goodness me - any BFC player who didn't enjoy last night didn't ought to be playing the game. Astonishing comment by you.
Conor not enjoying himself?! He's playing the best football of his life. he must be knocking on the door of his national side. He is proving to be an inspirational captain and he's scoring goals and making assists. Please let me know what's there not to enjoy?. Serious question.

8.Josh and Conor - they play a disciplined CM role and get fwd when the opportunity arises. Where was CH when he was foulled last night to win the free kick from which he scored? If they do sit deep it's to pick up the short ball from one of the CBs (remember them? - the guys who are just instructed to hoof it forward to get distance)

9. CH played a number of killer passes last night whether in the sitting position or advancing with the attack.

10. We had no chances after the first goal? Really? Kent's shot? Does that count?

11. "The way that we played is designed to take the sting out of the game, which it did, along with all the entertainment. It is deep defensive football designed to hold on to a lead rather than entertain."
Wow and wow again. From minute one we went for the oppositions throats. High pressing high intensity attacking football - with purpose and intent. if you didn't latch onto that then I'm afraid that your powers of analytical observation and comment aren't as good as I believed them to be.

12. As others have said, bringing on Sessi allowed us to move to 451 with Josh pushed further forward. Rather than assuming PH was playing for a draw at this time, why not take the view that in fact he was bolstering midfield to combat their threat but also releasing Josh to take advantage of any lay offs and knock backs fro Payne?

13. "There was nothing off the cuff, nothing made up on the spot." - with players like Hamill, Kent and Hourihane in that team last night, can you seriously continue with that view??

I'm tired. No popcorn for me tonight. You've clearly touched a nerve with many on here. Including me.
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Spot on 55 can't wait to get back in my seat

Red Rain · Aug 19, 2016

What has impressed me is that you have been through the whole of this thread, well my contributions anyway, and you have pasted and copied anything that I have said that you think others may feel is condescending and you have collected all of these things together in a single thread as examples. You have then suggested that I might like to change my style and given examples of how you have managed it when I explained that I was too old.

Are you sure you are finished with teaching?

That is all tongue in cheek by the way, just in case I come over all condescending.

55&counting · Aug 19, 2016

Thanks for the response. I do understand it's only football. I also know that it's about opinions; and on that note we will have to agree to disagree on some points whilst I do actually agree with you on many others. We have one grand thing in common. A love for our club which is enduring and lifelong.
I'll be at Huddersfield tmrw and will give the lads a cheer or two for the both of us!

55&counting · Aug 19, 2016

Jeff!!!!!!!!
So good to hear from you!!
When are you back??!

Tyke_67 · Aug 20, 2016

Red Rain said: ↑

What follows is my account and opinion of what happened and why. I wrote it last night but did not have the courage to post it. I wrote it this way because recording my impressions, untouched by emotions and hype (shortened just for Mike Lowry) is important to me, just as it is when we are losing games regularly and I am also trying to find a reason for it that does not involve writing-off the players and the manager as hopeless. If you want to read about feelings and emotions, there are lots of other threads that will give you what you want. This is not one of them. Stop reading here Mike.

The first half was a re-run of the Derby game. We are newly promoted, we were winning at half time and for most people that is all the information that they need. For me though, the game needs to be about more than formula football, more than 11 players doing exactly as they were told by the coach, and for me, that is exactly what I saw in that first half. We led from an early Watkins goal, once more from a set piece, and that was it.

In our last third, the players are not allowed to play football. They are merely instructed to get distance on every clearance, and the central defenders do so with both head and feet. There is little attempt to find a player ahead of them, and indeed there are very few players ahead of them because midfield is so deep. Once again, our central mid-field pair was so close to the line of the back four that they were virtually standing on their toes. This denied any room to the QPR no10 (Chery) but does not give the defenders a pass when they win the ball back. Up front, the two forwards are expected to work wonders from not very much. The formation makes Bradshaw look a very poor buy, and if we continue in this fashion, ultimately there is no place for him in our team. But he is not the only one who does not look like they are enjoying things. The system requires that Scowen and Hourihane do not get ahead of the ball, even though both full backs are allowed to. Scowen looks distinctly average when he is not allowed to play his natural, all action game. The opposite is true of Hourihane who finds much more room/time just in front of our back four, which he uses to spray passes to our two wide players and the two full backs. The problem is that killer passes are just not possible when playing as deep as Hourihane did in the first half, and as a result, everything came across the face of the QPR defence. Everything looked fine and QPR never created a chance, but my problem is that after the goal, neither did we. The way that we played is designed to take the sting out of the game, which it did, along with all the entertainment. It is deep defensive football designed to hold on to a lead rather than entertain. I have read lots of posts which tell me how we dominated that first half, but I do not know how that is possible with less than 50% of possession. What we did was take the sting out of the game by defending deep and in numbers.

It was clear that QPR changed tactics at the start of the second half. They decided that the answer to the way that we played was to break quickly and to allow their pace to tell against a more stretched defence, but the first penalty was also a lapse in concentration by Marc Roberts. On other occasions, they broke quickly from Barnsley set pieces at the QPR end and we were lucky on a couple of occasions that the ball broke for us, but the game was more open, and it was a much better game because of it. The second goal came from another misjudgement from another of our young players. James Bree knew right away, and QPR scored again from a second penalty, and I must confess that I did not see us coming back from it.

Payne had already replaced the Bradshaw before the second QPR goal, with little improvement in our ability to retain the ball up front, and it was hard to see how we could get back into the game. Indeed, there was controversy about the way that we did so. In my opinion, the push on Conor Hourihane was nothing, but Conor forced the referee into making a decision by falling onto the ball and grabbing it. The ref could either give a free-kick for a push or a free-kick for a hand ball, but he could not wave play on. He chose the home option and Conor hit the 25 yard free-kick high into the QPR net. I can understand why QPR were so incensed by the decision, and JFH has been unstinting in his criticism of the referee after the match. He has a point.

The withdrawal of Watkins and introduction of D’Almeida signalled that PH had decided that a draw was enough, but the introduction released Scowen into a role for which he is better suited, and it was on one of his supporting runs that the QPR defence got itself into a tangle and Scowen half-volleyed home the winner from 10 yards. Once again, I could see that there was a basis for criticising the referee after the game if you were the QPR manager. Certainly, if the ball had been scored at the other end, I would have expected PH to ask the same questions. Even though we had not had the depth of player quality that QPR possessed, we had won the game. The final slap in the face for QPR was the justified dismissal of Grant Hall for a second bookable offence, this time holding back Payne when he was about to go clear.

I enjoyed the second half, which I thought was superb entertainment, but in the first half, I could see the cogs turning in the machine. I could see the ideas of the coach and his master plan being carried out to the letter. There was nothing off the cuff, nothing made up on the spot. Rather than the talent and individual skills of the players, we had 11 players playing the game according to a formula, and that spoilt it for me.
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I could write a long winded email about how proud I am about the way the boys played, how we are punching above our weight, how we limited a team that (according to them) will be hoping to push for the Pl this season, against a team that has not yet conceded a goal, about how we managed to find the spirit determination and skill to come from behind to win a game we thoroughly deserved to.

But I won't, and you watched a very different game to me.

Selby Red · Aug 20, 2016

55&counting said: ↑

Jeff!!!!!!!!
So good to hear from you!!
When are you back??!
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Hi Steve had surgery 3 weeks ago and am all clear, hope to be back in 3 weeks or so.nice to hear from you.

Minority Report v QPR

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